


Freddy's Files

by ThereIsOnlyZuul



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's, The X-Files
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Horror, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-05-04 05:03:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5321507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereIsOnlyZuul/pseuds/ThereIsOnlyZuul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mulder and Scully are headed to the notorious Freddy Fazbear's Pizza to investigate some strange going-ons. The x-file points to something very sinister happening behind the smiling faces of the animatronics. Will they survive the night?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. FBI Headquarters

**Author's Note:**

> I decided today that a crossover of the X-Files/Five Nights at Freddy's needed to exist after searching FanFiction.net for one and finding nothing, and it just so happens that I'm the perfect sick and twisted individual to write it! Here's chapter one, more to come soon!
> 
> Enjoy - please review if you do!
> 
> Cheers!

___

FBI HEADQUARTERS  
WASHINGTON D.C.

___

 

Mulder was already behind his desk when Scully walked into the cramped office they shared in the basement of the FBI’s Washington headquarters. He had his feet up on his desk, a manila folder open and in front of his face.

“Morning Mulder.” Scully remarked.

“Morning Scully.” He replied without looking away from his folder.

“Interesting reading material?” Scully asked with a rise of her eyebrow.

“Very.”

Most of the folders that made it into Mulder’s hands were interesting, to say the least about them. Strange disappearances perpetrated by UFOs, or reports of attacks by an invisible man, or an ancient virus extracted from Antarctic ice and killing off scientists. And those were some of the more believable ones. Since Scully had been assigned to the x-files division, she and Mulder had yet to have a straight forward case together.

“Don’t leave me in the dark,” Scully replied as she took a seat in one of the two chairs kept in front of Mulder’s desk. No one ever came to the x-files office and Scully often wondered why Mulder kept them, other than the fact that the man seemed to enjoy a moderate amount of clutter around himself.

“Ever heard of Fazbear Entertainment?” Mulder asked as he brought the folder down.

Scully shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

“Does the bite of ’87 mean anything to you?”

Again Scully shook her head. “Should it? What kind of entertainment do they produce, Mulder? Pornography?” She added with a small, impish smile.

Mulder laughed. “Sounds that way, doesn’t it? But no, Fazbear Entertainment is all about animatronics. And subpar pizza. But it’s not the pizza that’s been written up in this file. Fazbear Entertainment’s main attraction is a chain of kid’s arcade and party restaurants. One of those places parents pay out the nose to have someone else deal with their children for a few hours. Pizza and arcade videogames and animal robots that sing songs, tell jokes, and otherwise entertain. Real popular place till a few years ago.”

Mulder put the open folder down on his desk and Scully got a glimpse of a picture showing the outside of a nondescript restaurant. She reached for it and spun it to face her. “Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.” She read from the neon sign that glowed in the picture. She flipped the picture around to see that Mulder had scribbled down the location. “Colorado. Actually, this rings a bell.”

“It was national news back in the aforementioned ’87 when one of said animatronics chomped down on a patron’s head and removed their frontal lobe during a child’s birthday party.”

Scully grimaced. “Terrible thing to happen on your birthday. Hope the kid isn’t scarred for life.” She scooped up the whole folder to flip through the other included materials. “So if this all happened in 1987, why is this a current x-file? Or an x-file at all?”

“The bite of ’87 isn’t what the x-file is about. There’s been another tragedy at this location.”

“More hungry animatronics?”

“Full blown murder.”

“Of a child?”

Mulder shook his head sadly. “No. Of five.”


	2. Reagan Airport

___

REAGAN NATIONAL AIRPORT  
WASHINGTON, DC

___

As it turned out, the kidnapping and suspected murder of five children at branch number 001 of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza wasn’t a new case. Mulder explained the whole tragic timeline of Freddy’s on the way to Colorado.

“The Fazbear name has been a magnet for despair since it opened, originally, as Fredbear’s Family Diner. This was back before it was bought by a corporation and rebranded as Fazbear Entertainment.” Mulder said as he dropped into his small hardly tolerable coach seat.

“What happened at Fredbear’s?” Scully asked as she crammed her bag into the overhead compartment.

“A murder. A single child was murdered just outside the diner. The original owners sold it shortly after this and it was quickly and meticulously rebranded as Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza.”

“Why even bother rebranding?” Scully commented as she dropped into her seat beside Mulder. She reclined her seat the minuscule amount that was possible in coach and attempted to make herself comfortable on the lumpy surface.

“That I can’t answer.” Mulder replied as he fiddled with the air jet above his seat.

“Aren’t you an Oxford educated psychologist, Mulder?” Scully asked with a smirk and a sideways glance. “Shouldn’t you be able to answer that?”

Mulder cast Scully a quick glance, a smirk of his own on his face. He disregarded her question and continued with his story. “The first Freddy’s restaurant on this location–”

“First? There’s been more than one Freddy’s restaurant on this one location?”

Mulder smiled. “Don’t worry Scully, I’m getting there. Anyways, the first Freddy’s gets built over Fredbear’s and then succumbs to the same fate as the diner: five kids go missing, are suspected to have been killed and Freddy’s rebrands again.”

“Of course they did.” Scully remarked with a roll of her eyes.

“So the first Freddy’s shuts down for a while and reopens with cuter, gentler looking animatronics. Plus, these new animatronics had facial recognition technology, tied into the local criminal databases so no one else gets murdered. But Freddy’s 2.0 suffers the same fate as 1.0 and Fredbear’s Diner before it. This time in the form of serious bodily injury by the animatronics.”

“The bite of ’87.” Scully commented. “So at this location, there’s been six murders and now a vicious maiming.”

“And it shuts down for another rebranding after this. It reopens in the same location but some of the building is closed off. They think making it smaller will make it more manageable. The cutesy animatronics are retired for whatever reasons and the old versions are brought back out. However, they’re restricted to only moving around at night.”

Scully turned to face Mulder. “Now there’s a detail that should have been mentioned sooner. They can move around?”

A smile spread over Mulder’s face. This was the part of the reveal that he loved: the one detail that was just so bizarre whatever audience he had (more often than not it was the sceptical Scully) had no choice but to pay attention. He loved the dramatics of it all.

“Yeah, it was the biggest attraction to the place. They would wander around the building based on sound. If they heard noise, they’d go to it assuming that whatever was making the noise needed entertaining. But after the bite of ‘87 they reprogrammed them so they stay put during the day.”

“Why let them move around at night?” Scully asked.

“Well, now that the cuddly critters aren’t allowed to move around during the day, the owners allow it at night so their servos don’t lock up and they remain in working order. This is where we come in. See, the night security guards keep going missing. They’re hired for a few nights work, and then are never seen again.”

“Why can’t the police deal with this, Mulder?”

“They have. A lot of the cases are still open because they didn’t find anything.”

“And what makes you think we’ll find anything?”

The seatbelt sign dinged as Mulder scoffed at Scully’s question. He turned to Scully as he clicked his seatbelt together and replied: “Scully, creepy animatronics that wander the site of six grisly murders and a vicious mutilation, it’s clearly our department.”


	3. Freddy Fazbear's Pizza: 2PM

___

FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZA  
NORTHWEST COLORADO  
2PM

___

The manager of the shabby, failing apart Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza scrutinized their badges longer and harder than anyone ever had before. They’d arrived at the restaurant and asked an unenthusiastic waitress to take them to the manager. He was in his office in the back, going over the books when Mulder and Scully had walked in.

“Well,” the oily, rat-like man replied as he handed back Scully’s badge and then Mulder’s, “these seem to be in order. Now, what was it that you wanted?”

“We’re here to investigate your missing security guards.” Scully replied.

“The FBI cares about four, middle-aged slackers so incompetent in the job the janitor had to clean up... bodily fluids come morning time?”

Mulder and Scully glanced at each other. Mulder’s look implied that this was all Scully’s: she was a doctor after all.

“What bodily fluids did they leave behind?”

“All of them used the underside of the security room’s desk as a toilet, for one.”

Mulder made a face, but Scully remained impassive: she’d had worse. “For one? Implying there’s been secondary things they’ve left behind?”

“Two left behind blood. One left a tooth!”

That elicited a grimace from Scully.

The manager continued on, clearly needing this outlet to complain about the goings on at Freddy’s most dysfunctional branch. “Used coffee cups and dirty magazines used to be the only things that used to get left behind in the office.”

“Pornography?” Both Scully and Mulder asked at once.

“Should you be allowing that type of behaviour in a children’s party restaurant?” Scully added.

“It’s never because of the kids!” The manager exclaimed, his eyes growing wide in panic. “Is that why you’re here? Have kids been molested?” His large nose began to twitch and his resemblance to a rat grew ten-fold. “I mean, the night shift has always been hard to find cover for. Before the current bout of not being able to keep them around, you either had to choose from old guys that fell asleep or young guys that got so bored they just sat around and played with themselves... Hence the porno.” He added after a moment’s pause, hoping to clear up any suspicions that might have been raised in the two federal agents.

Mulder threw Scully another look. The corner of his mouth was raised in a smirk as he replied sarcastically: “Hence the porno, Scully.”

Scully held no amusement in the comment. She turned back to the manager. “Did it never occur to you to hire a woman to be the night guard, Mister Wallace?”

“Are you kidding me?” He exclaimed. “Women are too smart to take that job. Most people are too smart for the night shifts.”

“Why is that, Mister Wallace?” Mulder asked.

The man rolled his beady eyes. “There have been six murders at this place. And then the media-dubbed Bite of ’87 didn’t help. Then this new rule where Freddy and the gang are only allowed to wander at night... and they’re not in the best of shape... Those freaky things really stink some days.”

“Do you not enjoy your job, Mister Wallace?” Scully asked as she watched a dark cloud of anxiety wash over the rodent man’s face.

“Listen, if you were from head office, I couldn’t be stopped talking about how much I love this job. But you’re not, so let’s just leave it at that.”

“Of course,” Mulder replied as soothingly as he could. He didn’t need the little man seizing up in terror and refusing to help them. The last thing he needed was to go to Skinner and have to try and explain why he needed court orders to look around a Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza in middle-of-nowhere Colorado. “We’re not here to see if you like your job–”

“Or even if you’re good at it,” Scully added as she looked around the shabby back office.

“We just want to delve a little deeper into the disappearances.”

The manager looked between the two of them before he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, sure. If you two take care of it quietly that’s one less thing for the media to latch onto and drive away what little business we have left. Should we start with the security office?”

“It’s as good a place as any.” Scully remarked.

“Unless it hasn’t been cleaned since your last guard,” Mulder added quietly.


	4. Freddy Fazbear's Pizza: 2PM Con't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this update took so long - that's what happens when I'm distracted by Christmas :P

___

FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZA  
NORTHWEST COLORADO  
2:10PM

___  
  

The manager led Mulder and Scully on a tour around the restaurant. Considering that they were in the business of children’s happiness, the atmosphere was anything but happy. The checkered tiles were splattered with greasy food stains, the pastel coloured walls were grungy with peeling paint in places and cobwebs in the corners. The staff were all in miserable moods, no doubt from the countless hours spent listening to the blaring music from the band stand, the screaming children, and the ceaseless sound effects coming from the dozens of arcade games in the room off the main dining hall.

“That’s the gang there,” the manager said as he pointed at the animatronics that jerked back and forth on the stage. The few children in the place jumped up and down at the stage’s edge reaching their greasy hands towards the creatures on stage. There was a blue rabbit with a red bass guitar to the left, a yellow chicken with a horrifying humanoid looking cupcake on a platter to the right, and a bear with a top hat and a microphone right in the middle.

“Those things are your main attraction?” Scully asked with skeptical glance in Mulder’s direction.

“They used to be... nicer,” the manager sighed. He said it in a tone that implied it was something that he was constantly saying. “They’ve been around since the early eighties after all. Constant bandstand performances and they used to have face to face interaction with the kids. They’ve been worn down. I mean, Foxy more or less has a permanent out of order sign over at the pirate’s cove.”

“Why not replace them?” Mulder asked as he got an eyeful of the animatronics from where they stood at the back of the room. He’d studied the file back at headquarters and knew the frightful creatures by their names: Bonnie, Chica, and Freddy, with Foxy off in different party room on his own.

“We did briefly. They were hard to maintain though: they burned out real easy. And apparently they acted weird towards adults near the end.”

“That’s why you retired them after the Bite of ’87?”

The manager winced. “Please don’t call it that. The media dubbed it that and I hate it.”

“Why is that?” Mulder asked.

“It... makes light of the situation, don’t you think?”

“That’s putting it mildly.” Scully remarked. “From what I’ve heard of this place not a single _light_ thing has ever happened.”

“That’s not true!” The manager said in a huff, drawing a few stares from the parents that sat back from the commotion their children were making. His rat face twitched and he lowered his voice. “This place, for the most part, has made a lot of kids really happy. These mascots deserve a little respect for that, don’t they?”

“Which one caused... the incident?” Mulder asked. It was the one thing not mentioned in his x-file.

“A retired one named FredBear.”

“FredBear is different than Freddy?” Scully asked.

“Yes. He was part of a pair of golden coloured creatures that could be used as a costume. You’d press down on the machine bits to compress them to the front of the suit and then climb into it. The springs that held the machinery were easily dislodged though, so after the... incident they just put them away from good. They’re not worth the trouble. Every new mascot we’ve tried as never worked out as well as those three you see standing on that stage.”

One of the nosier parents had drifted from her own conversation and was listening in on theirs. A cigarette was sitting listlessly between her middle and index fingers as she discreetly moved closer and closer to the end of her bench. 

The manager noticed the woman and gestured them away from the main dining area. They moved down a hallway that was lined with pictures of the restaurants mascots, all in messy crayon and all at what would be a child’s eye level.

Mulder stopped to stare at a few of them more closely. Most were standard large circle bodies with stick arm creations, coloured in haphazardly with crayons that showed children hugging the mascots or them playing instruments or walking through a field of flowers with a big smiley sun looking down on them: very typical children creations. Others though... others were less typical. Mulder made a mental note to come back and take a closer look at the pictures later.

The hallway they were being led down went past the bathrooms, where as the trio past, a skinny, raggedy looking man in a security officer’s uniform emerged, wiping his still wet hands on his grubby pants.

“Ah, agents, this is our day-time security, Mister Lila.” The manager said as he came to a stop in front of the man.

The security guy reached out his hand to shake Mulder’s and then Scully’s. It was still damp. “Agents?” The man asked, a nervous twinge in his eye going off. “What kind?”

“Federal.” Mulder replied.

“As in... FBI?” The man asked, rasping as he tried to bring moisture back to his suddenly dry mouth.

“They’re here to look into the missing night security guards.”

“Oh!” The man said in surprise. Possibly it was relief.

Mulder took yet another mental note; this one of the man’s bizarre reaction. Was he relieved that they were here to look for his fellow workers, or was he relieved that they weren’t looking for something else?

“We’re going to the security office now.” The manager said with a raise of his eyebrows. Probably a signal that it there were any of the dirty magazines previously mentioned laying around he should run back and hide them.

Mister Lila seemed to understand and shook his head with a smile. Scully noticed his teeth were crooked and severely yellow. “That’s fine by me boss. Just excuse the pizza crusts scattered about. I just can’t resist a good slice of pizza.”

“Why are you eating Fazbear’s pizza then?” Mulder asked with a smirk.

“It’s free for employees,” the manager added as he tried to suppress a smile.

Mulder smiled and Scully let out a small laugh, but Mr. Lila had no such reaction. His gaunt face turned into a scowl and he narrowed his eyes at Mulder. The smile slipped from Mulder’s face but he didn’t break eye contact. More than likely this guy had a superiority complex. Most security guards do.

Mister Lila broke the eye contact first. “I’m going to do the rounds now, boss. I’ll leave you and the agents to do your work.”

“We’ll be back to ask some questions later,” Mulder said. Mister Lila muttered his reply, keeping his eyes downcast, before walking away.


	5. Freddy Fazbear's Pizza: 2:20PM Con't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so what's my excuse this time? Why's it been months since my last update? Truth is, I just didn't feel like writing this fic! I know, I'm a terrible person! Hear me out though! I quit my job and started working a good friend of mine as a writer/editor on an amazing nerd-related website (RoguesPortal.com, check it out because it's awesome!). I also finished my first novel right before the New Year and have been wrapped up in editing that hulking beast! But I'm back now and ready to produce some more wicked X-Files/Five Nights at Freddy's crossover goodness!
> 
> Enjoy - please review if you do!
> 
> Cheers!

___

FREDDY FAZBEAR'S PIZZA  
NORTHWEST COLORADO  
2PM

___

The security office was at the very back of the restaurant and only about twice as big as a broom closet. It had two doorways on either side of a torn and dirty wheelie chair with heavy-duty, sliding metal doors and two windows beside the doors. They provided a scenic view of the two hallways that connected to the office. There was a desk filled with small monitors, each showing a different area of the restaurant, a fan caked in greasy dust, pizza crusts, and soda cups. There were children’s pictures on the walls in here as well, though Mulder noted they were only of the character he’d yet to see face to face: Foxy.

"He wasn't kidding about the pizza," Scully said as she used the tip of the pen to scrap a few crusts into the trashcan. She was disgusted to see that it was filled nearly exclusively with pizza crusts.

"Yeah." The manager muttered with a nose twitch. "It's a wonder he's still so skinny after all these years. And that we haven't gone bankrupt feeding him."

"Years?" Mulder asked as he looked away from the children's drawings.

"Lila's been here since before I took over as manager. He was here for the Bite of '87 and during investigation for the five missing kids. He was even arrested under suspicion of having done it."

"Well, that's some interesting information." Scully remarked as she and Mulder made eye contact.

"No bodies were ever found or anything so he was released and the charges dropped."

"What do you think about his arrest?" Mulder asked.

The manager looked over his shoulder out the door behind them and signalled for Mulder to do the same. "Is he out there?" When Mulder shook his head no, the manager still whispered his reply. "I wasn't here when it happened so I'll never know for sure but I've never liked him. He's weird. Completely off-putting."

"Is he popular with the kids?" Mulder asked.

"I've never seen a child directly interacting with him."

"But the pictures?" Mulder asked as he pointed to all the Foxy pictures taped to the wall.

"Must have collected them himself."

"That's interesting information as well." Mulder said quietly as he looked back to the pictures.

The overhead PA system suddenly cracked to life. "Code pink. Code pink." A high-pitched, wheezy voice called through it.

"Oh Lord, code pink is a kitchen accident! If I don't make it back before you're done, just let yourselves out, yeah?" He didn't wait for an answer before turning on his heel and rushing off to the kitchen.

Scully watched him hurry through the restaurant on the tiny, desktop monitors. Mulder had busied himself with opening the desk drawers. The top drawer was an assortment of mismatched stationary. The bottom drawer was a collection of crossword puzzles, decks of cards, and dirty magazines.

Scully squatted down to take a look underneath the desk as Mulder rifled to the bottom of the drawer. There was a faint smell of urine under the sharp smell of disinfectant. "Well, any evidence of foul play has been scrubbed away with disinfectant," Scully remarked as she stood.

"There's nothing in the desk. At least nothing we didn't already know about." Mulder said as he picked up a sticky copy of Hustler from the drawer.

Scully scoffed and pushed the magazine out of her line of sight. "Do you think they record the security camera footage?"

"I doubt it." Mulder replied as he tossed the magazine back into the drawer. "That's why they have security guards. Don't need to record it if there's someone watching it."

"It would make our job a hell of a lot easier if they did."

"But it's never easy for us Scully. I thought you would have known that by now," Mulder replied as he dropped into the wobbly chair.

"So now what?" Scully asked as she leaned against the doorframe. "There's nothing in this office if there's no physical evidence left by the night guards or security camera footage. Where do we go from here?"

Mulder laughed as he leaned back and put his legs up on the desk. "Isn't it obvious? We work the night shift."


	6. Peppy's Diner: 10:30PM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See? I told you I'd be back again soon! This one is a little short but it's one of two chapters fresh off the press, both of which are going up now! Enjoy - and please give me a little feedback if you do!
> 
> Cheers!

___

PEPPY’S DINER  
NORTHWEST COLORADO  
10:30PM  
___

 

The burgers were greasy and the fries too salty, but the portions were big and it was the only place besides Freddy Fazbear's Pizza that was still open in the town to sit down and eat. Since Scully was in no hurry to be anywhere near Freddy's restaurant anymore than she absolutely had to be, she pushed hard for Peppy's Diner.

Mulder absentmindedly dipped the same fry through his ketchup as he read over the case file once again. Scully chewed her burger thoughtfully as she stared out the streaky diner window at the main street of town.

“What do you think we’ll find out working the night shift?” Scully asked as she swallowed the processed cheese and lumpy meat that made up her very late dinner.

Mulder crammed his thoroughly ketchuped fry into his mouth before replying. “At this point, I’m guessing ghosts and fresh corpses under the kitchen floor.”

Scully rolled her eyes but smiled at Mulder’s comment. “For once, I think we’re thinking the same thing,” she remarked as she sipped her diet Coke.

“Now that’s scary,” Mulder remarked as he looked at his watch. “They’re closing in half an hour. We better finish up and head over.”

“Fine by me,” Scully said as she pushed the few bites left of her burger away. “The sooner we get this over with, the better.”

Mulder wiped his mouth on his napkin and tossed it onto his plate. He signalled the bored looking waitress. “The cheque and two coffees. To go.”


	7. Freddy Fazbear's Pizza: 11:35PM

___

FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZA  
NORTHWEST COLORADO  
11:35PM  
___

 

Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza was on the other side of town. It wasn’t a big town by any means though, and they arrived in their black rental car just a few minutes after leaving the diner. The lights were on inside and they watched the closing shift employees cleaning up.

“They’ll be done by midnight. Then the place is all ours. Well, ours and theirs,” Mulder said as he gestured towards the restaurant. Scully knew he meant the animatronics. They stood at the back of the dining hall on their show stage, moving left and right to follow the movement of the pink haired girl that was vacuuming.

“It’s amazing children have ever found those things anything but terrifying.” Scully said as she pulled the lid off her coffee to add her cream and sugar. “Having them following us around all night is scaring me just thinking about it.”

“Not a fan of bunnies and bears?”

“It’s the chicken that’s most upsetting. Why does it need teeth?”

“Wait until you see Foxy.”

Scully sighed. “What’s Foxy got?”

“A hook.”

“Why?” Scully asked again.

“Because he’s a pirate, Scully.”

They both chuckled quietly and sipped their coffee.

From inside the restaurant, the pink haired girl finished her vacuuming and wheeled it off to put it away. A professional looking lady in a blouse and skirt stopped her and spoke to her for a minute. The pink haired girl pointed to the windows and they parted ways. The other lady, most likely the assistant manager that Mister Wallace had said was closing tonight, walked towards the doors. She squinted through the glass at the car. When Mulder and Scully emerged, she unlocked the door and propped it open.

“Agent Mulder? Agent Scully?” She asked as they approached. They simultaneously pulled out their badges for her to inspect. She gave them hardly a cursory glance before letting them in. “I’m glad you’re on time. Even a minute past midnight and we all would have been gone for the night.”

“Eager to get home, Miss?” Mulder asked as he watched the pink haired girl come back into the dining hall with a mop and bucket in place of the vacuum she’d just had.

“Miss Tully. And yes, I am. I never stay past midnight. Never. As soon as those things,” she gestured dramatically towards the animatronics, “are free to walk around at midnight, I am on the other side of those doors and headed for home.”

“Tell us about the gang,” Mulder said.

“There’s nothing to tell. They’re as dreadful as they look and even more so when they’re walking around. They laugh and hum and yet somehow they sneak around so quietly that you won’t know they’re in the same room as you until it asks what song you want to hear.” She shuddered, clearly remembering a personal experience. “I’ve only ever been here once when they were moving around and I never will be again.”

“We won’t keep you.” Scully replied. She understood the woman’s unease, she was experiencing it herself. “What can you tell us about the missing security guards?”

“Not much. Wallace is in charge of hiring and I usually work the mid-shift so I never had much contact with them. And I only ever opened the place once to discover one of them had disappeared.”

“Anything of importance that you noticed around the place when you discovered the guard was missing?” Scully asked. “Blood or evidence of foul play?”

“Nothing that I noticed that day. But again, I usually work mid-shifts. By the time I come in, everything has already been dealt with.”

“Besides finding out where they actually went, that is.” Mulder remarked.

Miss Tully cleared her throat awkwardly. “Yes. Besides that.”

“Is there anyone here now that we can talk to about the security guards?”

“Holly Waldorf, there with the mop. She can only work closing shifts, so if there’s anything to know, she probably knows it. But be quick. In exactly twenty minutes those things’ servos click to life and they start moving.”

“Which is to say we’ll be on our own in nineteen minutes,” Scully remarked quietly as Miss Tully walked away to check on her other employees.

The agents turned and strode towards the moping girl. She looked up and watched them approach, a small smirk on her face. “Since when does the FBI work night shifts at Freddy Fazbear’s?” She asked as they came to a stop in front of her.

“Since four of your last ones have gone missing.” Scully answered.

“You wanna hear what I know about them?” She asked, pushing some of her vivid pink hair out of her eyes.

“If you’d be so kind,” Mulder replied.

“I can’t tell you much about the first three besides their names. I’m sure you already know that. The last one though, Mike Schmidt, I got to know him. He was a cool guy. I told him to quit while he could. Told him it wasn’t worth doing the suckiest job this place has to offer just to save up for a motorcycle.”

“What do you think happened to Mike?”

Holly smirked again. “Freddy got him.”

“Excuse me?” Scully had gotten use to Mulder’s crazy stories but there were still times she was caught off guard. This was definitely one of those times.

Holly jerked her head towards the bear on stage and it jerked its head back in response to her movement. “Freddy got him. Don’t you know? They’re haunted.”

“The animatronics are haunted?” Mulder asked with a smile as he looked them up and down. There were plenty of theories he’d come up with concerning his x-files over the years, but ghosts were new, even to him.

“Yeah, dude!” Holly exclaimed with a smile. She obviously got a kick out of telling this story. “Haunted by the ghosts of the people that have died in this terrible place. That’s why the animontronics aren’t allowed to walk around during the day.”

“Animontronics?” Scully asked.

“A combo of the words animatronics and monsters. It’s a little joke around those of us that get the hell out of here before the midnight shift.”

“Besides the obvious,” Scully asked as she got a glimpse of the grubby yellow chicken out of the corner of her eye, “what makes them monstrous?”

“Oh God, everything! They glitch out in super weird ways and will just stand and stare at the security cameras. It’s like they know they’re being watched and they hate it. Prepare for a lot of that tonight. That and keeping the security office doors firmly shut when they’re nearby! Legends say that the cuddly bastards had to be restricted to the stage because they think humans are endoskeletons out their suits and they’ll try to cram you into one if they catch you!”

“So there are legends concerning this place?”

“Oh yeah.” Holly smiled from ear to ear. “My dad was the manager before Wallace took over two years ago and I’ve worked here since I was fifteen so I know all the stories.”

“Even the Bite of ’87?”

The smile slipped momentarily from Holly’s face. “Oh yeah. That one. My dad was here when that happened. That’s what made him retire. That’s the only story I don’t know by heart since he won’t talk about it.”

“And what’s the story with Mister Lila?” Mulder asked.

Holly’s jaw dropped. “Okay, real talk now. Is that why you’re here? Is that guy under investigation finally?”

“We’re not at liberty to say.” Scully replied automatically. She’d gotten used to deflecting nosy questions since she joined the FBI.

Holly rolled her brown eyes. “Okay, sure. That old story. Listen, if anyone should be investigated, it’s that freak. Everyone is so grossed out by that guy! He’s as weird as the animontronics! He used to be the night guard, you know. Until an incident,” she threw up her hands to put quotes around the word, “about six months ago.”

“What was the incident?”

“Wallace has already written me up for gossiping about it, but you’re feds so screw him. The creepy guard was always touching me: my hair, my arms, one time he came up behind me and kissed my neck! After that, I heard him mutter that he’d like to make use of ‘my pretty little mouth’!”

Scully made a face, Holly noticed. “Oh my God, right? You get it! What a creep! I told Wallace all this and they put him on day shift. They couldn’t just fire him though. Apparently he’s got too much seniority. He’s been here since my dad’s days. Figures huh? Creepy older dude makes creepy passes at a teenage girl but he’s worked here half his sorry life so they just make sure he’s not in contact with me anymore. As if putting him around even younger kids is any better!”

The PA speaker above their crackled and made all three jump. “It’s five minutes everyone! Get the cleaning supplies put away and grab what you came with from the break room.” Miss Tully’s voice rang throughout the restaurant.

Holly’s face fell, the blood seeming to drain all at once. “Crap! I still have half the damn hall to mop!”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mulder said as he took the mop from her hands. He noticed they were shaking. “I’ll finish up for you. There’s going to be nothing else to do while we’re here.”

“Are you kidding?” Without hesitation Holly turned on her heel and rushed off to the break room to collect her belongings. “You can’t be near these things when they start to move!” She called over her shoulder. “You don’t wanna get stuffed in a suit, do you?”


	8. Freddy Fazbear's Pizza: 11:54PM

___

FREDDY FAZBEAR'S PIZZA  
NORTHWEST COLORADO  
11:54PM  
___

Holly and the four other closing shift employees were amassed at the front door moments after the announcement was made. Holly and another girl were giggling nervously about something. The other three fidgeted: eager to get out of Freddy Fazbear's.

Miss Tully joined them at six minutes to midnight.

"Last chance to leave," she remarked as she rummaged through her purse for her keys.

"We'll be fine." Scully replied.

"Suit yourself," Miss Tully said as she found her keys and herded her employees out the front doors. "If something goes wrong, call Wallace, not the police. Don't make any messes in the bathroom. Don't eat anything from the kitchen. Oh, and the main lights go out at midnight."

"What's that?" Scully asked, not sure if she'd heard right.

Miss Tully stepped over the threshold. She propped the door open with her elbow to continue the conversation. "The place doesn't make enough money to justify having the lights on all night. You're welcome to turn them all back on if you want but there's a failsafe in the breaker box that kills all the power if a certain amount is exceeded within the next six hours."

"So we can stumble around in the near dark all night, rationing the power, or we can stumble around in the complete dark after an hour of illumination?" Mulder asked.

"You got it. Do what you will with the information."

She closed the door and slipped her key into the lock without another word. It clunked loudly. She gave Mulder and Scully one last look before walking away with a shake of her head.

The other employees had dispersed through the parking lot to their cars or hopped into their waiting rides. Mulder watched Holly's neon pink hair duck into a beat-up sedan before popping out again a moment later. She ran back towards the restaurant.

Miss Tully said something to her, no doubt telling her that if she's forgotten something she'd have to get it tomorrow, but Holly waved her off. She came to a stop right in front of the doors and slid a small scrap of paper between the double doors.

Scully plucked it up and saw that it was a phone number.

"My number!" She said through the door. "Call me if you need any info! There's so much more than I was able to tell you!"

"Or you could just stay," Mulder replied.

"With two minutes to midnight? Not on your life, buddy!" She gave the two agents a small wave before rushing back to her car.

Just as she pulled out of the parking lot onto the main street, the lights dimmed and the animatronics servos started to click.


	9. FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZA: 12:00AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this chapter has been a long time coming! Now that the action is picking up, hopefully I'll be able to get more out at a quicker pace :)

___  
FREDDY FAZBEAR’S PIZZA  
NORTHWEST COLORADO  
12:00AM  
___  
Scully nearly jumped out of her skin when Mulder put his hand on her shoulder. “And so it begins.” He said, low and ominously. 

She turned, to tell Mulder to cut it out, but was left nearly blind as her eyes adjusted from the well lit parking lot to the darkened restaurant. She blinked rapidly, her heart pounding harder with every blink. She could hear the machinery inside the animatronics whirling to life but she couldn’t see them.

Were they moving yet?

Was there any truth behind the urban legends that surrounded Freddy Fazbear’s?

Ironic that she should just be commenting on Tully’s paranoia only to be neck deep in her own. 

“What do you want to do about the lights?” She said as the outlines of tables and chairs began to take shape around her.

“Well, the emergency lights by the show stage are enough for me to mop by,” Mulder replied with a smile. “Your flashlight should be enough to get you to the security office.”

“A man of your word,” Scully said as she slipped Holly’s phone number into her pocket. “Don’t take too long with it.”

“Don’t want me to get stuffed in a suit, Scully?”

“I know how much you’d enjoy having a hook but I don’t think it would suit you,” Scully remarked before she clicked on the small flashlight she always kept on her. She passed it quickly over the animatronics–they were all still there–before she headed off to the security office at the back of the restaurant. 

“Hey Scully?”

“Yes Mulder?”

“Keep your cell phone handy. Something tells me these three aren’t going to be very good conversationalists.”

___

Mulder had had a terrible fear of the dark when he was three. His father had told him that every time the dark frightened him, he should whistle a tune. He had used the trick until about age six when the dark stopped scaring him.

He picked it up again now, some thirty years later.

The emergency lights lit up a few select spots in the large dining hall. Staring into the corners where the lights where, Mulder picked up the faint blinking of a tiny red light on the security cameras. He made note of their positions around the room and waved to each in turn, just in case Scully was watching.

With a roughly whistled tune on his lips, he grabbed the mop and bucket and wheeled it to where Holly hadn’t had a chance to get to. It had been a long time since he’d done grunt work like mopping but he found he hated it more now than he did when he was a teenager making minimum wage from it. 

“No surprise there,” he muttered to himself. “I may have only been making peanuts back then but I wasn’t going to get stuffed into a suit either.”

Dragging the dirty mop with no particular rhythm, Mulder took in the sights of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria. Holly had already mopped the half of the dining hall that led to the washrooms, so Mulder moved towards the half that led to the arcade and Pirate Cove. He kept his eyes on the showstage as he went.

The clicking coming from the animatronics was erratic. They were just waking up after eighteen hours sleep. Mulder figured when the grating, sizzling clicks and pops became smooth and uniform, that would be the time to get out of their line of sight.

The arcade area was carpeted but Mulder took a few steps into it just to check it out. The machines were on standby for the night but a few still had their screens lit up, enticing people to drop in their quarters. 

“Well, if it’s a slow night at least I can play Street Fighter,” Mulder commented as he moved throughout the machines. He made note that there were no cameras in his area. There was a camera behind the door labelled ‘Backstage–Employees Only’ which he opened up to peer inside. There were also empty suits and mechanical bits and bobs lining all the available space, and a smell that was anything but pleasing. Mulder took a guess that because the animatronics were brought back here for repair, the smell was from their decades of unwashed fun-fur.

He was beginning to agree with Scully that these things couldn’t bring much joy to children.

He closed the backstage door behind him and exited the arcade. He checked his watch, it was twenty five minutes after midnight. He wheeled his mop towards Pirate Cove. Standing on the threshold of the small room that hosted private parties, he found himself a little hesitant to go in. Though he’d joked about Foxy, the prospect of what a rogue animatronic with a hook might be able to do to a human was an unappealing one.

What little light was cast in the room illuminated the sparkly curtain that surrounded Foxy’s showstage. Foxy himself was nowhere to be seen. Presumably because he was out of order. Unless the sign that was placed in front of the curtain was wrong. 

A sudden, shrill noise almost had Mulder out of his socks. After the first nerve-wracking second, he realized it was his cell phone. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it up to his ear.

“Boo!” Was how Scully greeted him.

“I suppose you’re watching me?” Mulder said as he located the camera in Pirate Cove and waved to it.

“I am. And I definitely just watched you jump when your phone started ringing.” Scully replied with a smile.

“As much as I hate to say it, this place is giving me the creeps.”

“That’s the understatement of the century,” Scully said with a sigh as she looked around her own surroundings. The dingy little security office was even worse when the only light available came from the tiny monitors in front of her. 

“How does the place look on the cameras?” Mulder asked.

“In desperate need of an upgrade. Or an uncontrollable fire. Either or would do wonders.”

“That bad?”

“The picture quality is abysmal. It flickers, there’s static, there’s not even close to enough light to properly see what’s going on. And the audio options only work for one of the cameras. And that camera isn’t giving any picture.”

“What camera is that?”

“The kitchen.”

“So if I were so inclined to help myself to a soda there’d be absolutely no evidence?”

“Didn’t Ms. Tully say not to take anything from the kitchen?”

“What Ms. Tully doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” Mulder replied with a chuckle. 

Scully’s eyes travelled from one tiny screen to the next. She wasn’t sure what was worse, not being able to see anything compared to being able to hear everything. 

As her eyes travelled back to the monitor that Mulder was on, she noticed something that made her lean in closer.

“Scully? You still there?” Mulder asked after she’d been quiet for a moment too long.

“Mulder, was the showstage curtain behind you always open?”

“Nice try, Scully.” Mulder teased as he stayed as he was, staring up at the camera.

“I’m not kidding, Mulder. Wasn’t it closed before?”

Mulder knew Scully well enough to know that if she were kidding, she would have admitted to it. He turned quickly on his heel to see that, sure enough, the showstage curtain was open just enough for him to catch a glimpse of a tall, animal figure behind it. 

“It was definitely closed before,” Mulder replied. “It seems that our friends are waking up.”


End file.
